


Ouroboros

by Desdemon



Category: Doctor Who (1963), Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: M/M, Timey-Wimey
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-05-01
Updated: 2006-05-01
Packaged: 2017-10-22 16:26:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 838
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/240064
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Desdemon/pseuds/Desdemon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Turlough!” the man is breathless and sharp-featured, and Turlough has never seen him before in his life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ouroboros

The last time comes first, and here is how it happens:

A mouth comes down on Turlough’s neck, teeth drag and Turlough jerks

“Where have you been?” the Doctor asks, half-curious, half-testy, as he has been waiting for nearly an hour.

“I beg your pardon?” Turlough asks incredulously. He furrows his brows at the stranger.

“Eighteenth century architecture, wooden eaves, white-painted caulking, suggests Northeastern Europe –“

Turlough jerks and he is gasping, a tongue and his fingers twitch

“I’ve – “ Turlough has no answer for him, none that he can actually tell him, anyway, so he swallows and tries to think of a lie.

The stranger cocks his head and gives a sharp, wide smile. “Hello, Turlough.”

Wait, the Doctor said, but Turlough is feeling restless, so when the doorman isn’t looking, he slips out the front, takes note of which way is north, and takes off down a street.

A warm wet kiss and a shiver spreads out from his shoulders, fingers creep lower and lower and his breath picks up

“You can’t even lie properly, what’s happened to you?” The Doctor straightens from where he’s been tinkering with the console, and Turlough swallows and stares at him and for the first time in his life words fail him completely.

-“cobblestone streets, right, wide enough for horses and carts, buildings close together, that sign’s in German, bit of a giveaway –“

He first sees the stranger come skidding around a corner, absurdly and blaringly anachronistic in pinstripes and trainers. He nearly knocks into Turlough, and as he puts his hands out to balance the both of them, his eyes go wide.

Caught off-guard, Turlough finds himself looking at his Earth watch. “Right, never mind,” the stranger says, and he takes his hands out of his pockets and rubs them together, squinting up at the buildings around them. “All right: where am I?”

and his wrists twist together and he suddenly wants very badly to touch, to touch touch him but he can’t and that is lovely too, that hurts beautifully in his arms and stomach

It isn’t really goodbye, not for Turlough, so he just nods, and steps out of the TARDIS. The other TARDIS.

“-so, all in all, I think I can very safely say that I am…” The stranger points at the ground. “Elsewhere. I mean, somewhere else. I mean, not where I meant to go. I’m not supposed to be here. Sorry,” he says, as if Turlough has the faintest idea what he is talking about, only there is that suit –

He turns back once, when he hears the shuddering of the TARDIS’ engine, but the box has faded from the background by the time his eyes get there.

“Turlough!” the man is breathless and sharp-featured, and Turlough has never seen him before in his life. “What are you doing here?”

The stranger - the Doctor – murmurs against his ear, “I remember how much you like this,” and then his hands are on Turlough’s tie, and there is friction as it slides away and heat as the Doctor mouths his jaw

\- that daft suit, and that lit-up grin, and all that jabber about architecture, and suddenly Turlough begins to have an idea who he’s run into.

The stranger puts his hands in his pockets as if they are having a chat and not knocking into each other from around corners. “Be a good lad and tell me what time it is, would you?”

“ _Doctor?_ ”

“You remember,” Turlough mutters, watching through slitted eyes as the Doctor wraps his wrists once, twice, over and under, “does that mean…?”

Turlough almost laughs. “You look good, Doctor. I like the suit. And the hair, the hair’s a bit different from the others.” He grins and can’t stop.

fingers close around him at last and he whines

The Doctor’s eyes search him; his face is grave and concerned. Turlough looks away, down, at the console, anywhere but at the Doctor – and then he sighs. “I’ve been with you,” he says.

“Yes, that means,” the Doctor says, in the process of removing his own tie. He smiles that quick bright smile, and then he covers Turlough’s eyes.

the Doctor’s hands, leaving him shaking. the Doctor’s lips, delicate and terrible on his skin. the Doctor breathing. the Doctor moving. the Doctor. the Doctor

The Doctor ruffles his own hair and says, “Yes, well, I was going for -“ He stops and his eyes flick to Turlough’s hair. “- something else – it’s all different though, everything, even the TARDIS has a bit of polish to her, old girl.” He stops again, and then looks at Turlough. He raises his eyebrows, and a slow sort of smile spreads across his face. “D’you want to see it?”

“Oh,” the Doctor says. He blinks, nonplussed. Then he frowns. Then his face changes, and when he looks at Turlough again, everything is different. “Oh,” he says.

As the Doctor slides his hands up Turlough’s back, he breathes, “Oh, but I’ve missed this,” and then he kisses Turlough like he’s done it before.


End file.
